The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

By: Mark Twain

Libby audiobook 9 hours

Read by: Tom Parker

Published: 1884 (this version 2004)

Genre: adventure

 

I was listening to this because it was available and it's been a while since I had read it. I am struggling to finish it because I dislike it more than I remembered. I can't find a blog entry for it, so when did I last read it? I'm also not able to locate an entry on my reading log, so . . . it's been a few decades.

Right at the start, my notes include "boy gang / oath / dark and awful." Even though they don't actually rob and kill, the fact that their game includes such intense violence is horrific, even by the standards of a century ago.

The widow and Mrs. Watson, the views on Providence, the religious attitudes . . . sigh.

Huck's dad is anti-learning. He's an illiterate alcoholic and wants no better for his son. 

The Mississippi River geography, calling "Cairo" (Illinois) "Cay-roh," trying to picture the path Huck and Jim took, . . . that was fun.

The use of the "N" word was so excessive and insulting. I knew that was a part of the story and the source of a lot of controversy about this book, but I had forgotten how overwhelming it was to listen to. Huck is sometimes a true friend to Jim and other times just as racist and awful as possible. I didn't like how gullible and superstitious Jim was, especially when he woke up after he and Huck had been separated and Huck denied he'd ever been gone or that there had been any fog. I didn't like that Huck even contemplated turning Jim in as a runaway slave - as though that "crime" is worse than the crime of having slaves! And if this was published in 1884 . . . were "runaway slaves" still a thing?!

By the time I got to the part with the Duke and the King, I decided I really didn't want to finish the second half of the book. I know that part of Twain's work as an author was to ridicule what was wrong with society (like the pointlessness of feuds and people killing one another until no one is left or the shucksters who pretend to be what they're not to fleece unwitting people), but I simply am not enjoying this book. And I know I've read it before.

 

 

Mark Twain's Book for Bad Boys and Girls

text by Mark Twain
edited by R. Kent Rasmussen
gift to me, hardcover 173
genre: stories, sayings, humor

I don't remember who gave this to me or why, but it's been on my shelf of books for a long time. At times, I enjoyed reading it. Twain is funny, sarcastic, smart, observant . . . or was, rather. At times, it made me sad. As amazing a writer as he was, he's dead now. From the way he writes about religion, God, faith, etc. it doesn't seem that he believed in God or salvation. How sad for him.

The section of the book on "Divine Providence" and especially the story "The Drownings of Lem Hackett and Dutchy" seem to prove his point that it doesn't matter how you live your life - whether you are good or bad, you'll die. So you may as well have fun being bad. Ugh.

Many of the stories were from his autobiography, which I've not read. The excerpts from Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn were familiar. There were also many stories from shorter pieces and those were new to me, too. He had a very sardonic wit!